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Huffington: Trolls Uglier Than Ever, So We're Cutting Off Anonymous Commenting
v3rgEz writes "The days of anonymous commenting on The Huffington Post are numbered. Founder Arianna Huffington said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in Boston Wednesday that the online news site plans to require users to comment on stories under their real names, beginning next month. 'Freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they’re saying and not hiding behind anonymity,' Huffington said."
Yes, i am aware of the irony... but nevertheless I have always been in favor of this.
Comment on stories under their *facebook accounts.... Nice try, they are simply using this as an excuse to expand their advertising market.
This would, of course, be news to Publius (Patrick Henry).
I think it's fine if they want to force people to register and maybe jump through a few hoops so someone can't just create a new account and be flaming away ten seconds later, but i'm not a fan of the "real name" thing. I objected when Google tried to push the idea and i still don't like it now. Consistent identities and some kind of moderation system are enough to tame the worst abuses without trying to drag real names into it.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Identify yourself or be laughed at and ridiculed.
I agree completely!
AC
What if wide-spread mass adoption of anonymity actually leads to undermining Society's value of free speech? If no one's willing to stand up and be recognized for what they say, then why would we require freedom of speech for recognized individuals? Seems inefficient if everyone wants the privilege but none of the responsibility.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Those cowardly founding fathers!
>The authors used the pseudonym "Publius", in honor of Roman consul Publius Valerius Publicola.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers
Pseudonymity in the age of data aggregation is crucial. Any "real name" policy is very boneheaded, and can lead to endangering the readers.
You are nuts if you post anything, anywhere under real name. Internet has no "right to forget".
Identify yourself...
and get shot... http://mashable.com/2011/11/10/mexico-blogger/
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Not everyone wants to express an opposing view point on Huffington and be called a racist, or be labeled as such. Lets be honest here, Huffington super users are the first to pull the racist card the moment their arguments get refuted. (with maybe the exception of MSNBC comment sections)
I have wondered over the last few years why more big-name general news sites around the world don't just shut down their comment systems. The comments attached to virtually any major TV news network site or newspaper site tend to be filled with content that does little if anything to actually further any sort of discussion or dissemination of knowledge about the topic at hand.
I have noticed recently some of the sites I follow daily have started to only selectively permit commenting on stories. Stories which are likely to bring out the trolls and bigots seem to have commenting disabled more and more. However, I'm not sure why these news sites don't just bite the bullet and dismantle the comments attached to stories. Nobody seems to ever benefit from them.
(Obviously, something like /. which is centred around discussion and commenting is a somewhat different beast. I am specifically talking about general news outlets like CBC News, The Toronto Star, or CNN.com, and others like them. /. naturally also has the benefit of community-driven moderation to limit trolling, flamebait, and spam).
Yaz
I will quit the internet if I'm unable to get an hp account with a fake name.
>>>If you are afraid to be known for your comments and insist on posting anonymously
You are assuming everyone who is reading your comments is equally reasonable.
YOU ARE WRONG AND I WILL MURDER YOUR FAMILY!!!!
There are occasionally exceptions where people *need* to remain anonymous for fear of lawsuits or termination from their jobs
This is not nearly so rare as you imagine.
Well she's not exactly getting any more beautiful herself either..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I had my account deleted years ago when they went from a news site to an agenda site. I've very liberal mind you, and even I had comments deleted that didn't match the party line (including reminding everyone under a feel-good article that Gavin Newsome had cheated with an employee's wife and wasn't some kind of saint). I just couldn't tolerate the naked agenda-driven slant and how even other liberal opinions weren't accepted. I've had admins jump into threads and argue with me and threaten deletions. I've been online since 1991 and that's the only time I've had an account wiped, so I'm no troll. I haven't tried commenting out there in years, so I don't know what there forums are like now.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The USA was founded by use of Anonymous Pamphleteers. The British desperately want the Colonists to use their real names. The British wanted to arrest, imprison and execute these Anonymous Pamphleteers. Were it not for anonymous posting, there would be no USA.
The USA Constitution provides for "freedom of speech". Speech cannot be free under an oppressive or tyrannical political system without anonymity.
While Huffinton may want people to be "civil", she is actually contributing to the destruction of both civility and freedom.
Anonymous isn't the same thing as pseudonymous. I have a lot more invested in "seebs" than I do in the name on my driver's license.
Even ignoring that, though... Your point is still ill-considered. The "lawsuits" and "termination" are just where it starts; the world is full of people who are going to be threatened with all sorts of things if they identify themselves. And, of course, you can provide for that, but if the way you provide for it involves people having to prove to someone else that their reason is good enough, that can also effectively "out" them.
So far, if I compare all the things I've ever read from people who insist that anyone not identified by a "real name" isn't serious or real, and all the things I've ever read under arbitrary pseudonyms, the latter have been a much, much, more valuable resource.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
That is silly. One of the great features of the internet is that you can debate freely and anonymously. I don't want everything I say or have ever said turned into a googlable permanent record. I sometimes change my mind. I sometimes say stupid things. I sometimes make "too soon?" jokes. I don't want permanent records of every utterance. Online forums are places for informal discussions. If I tell you a dirty joke after work, it doesn't get indexed for the next 20 years. I'm not writing a law school dissertation on how I feel about the 2nd amendment with every post. And, I don't want my silly or crude Kristen Stewart jokes showing up when an employer looks me up. This is probably nothing more than analytics and adding another notch in your marketing profile. It's simple to do what Slashdot does and allow the community to self-police. Mod the trolls out of existence and there's no problem.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
If you aren't afraid to be known for your comments, then you haven't been on the internet long enough, IMHO. Are you old enough to remember what happens on harmless-seeming newsgroups? A simpe discussion of gardening tips can suddenly erupt into threats of cross-country trips to perform physical violence. Lessons learned as a 3rd-hand bystander: always post anonymously (or at least pseudonymously). Always.
Cyber-bullying, cyberstalkers, and internet vigilantes are much worse for society than trolls. Trolls can be modded into oblivion, and most trolls don't have access to multiple IP addresses, so they're very easy to squelch.
Slashdot's sensible AC policy is the main reason I still visit here after 13 years.
I really despise the school of thought that if there isnt a name attached to an idea, it obviously has no worth. If a PhD and a streetbum both submit articles on how to suture a wound and both are scientifically correct, does it matter who wrote what article? Would you really spend time talking discrediting the bum's paper solely on who he is and not the content of his work?
Good-bye
If I was independently wealthy too, it would be easy to post under my real name and damn the consequences.
Most of us have to work though, and are at the mercy of the Arianna Huffington's of the world for employment. As long as my future employment is contingent on what people like her think about whatever comes up when my name is googled, I'm not free to speak under my real name.
What is the condition where a person thinks a word has a different meaning because it sounds like something totally unrelated?
Ignorance. It's a fairly common affliction.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Those homeosexuals can quit exchanging their extremely diluted bodily fluids and get back in the closet
What is the condition where a person thinks a word has a different meaning because it sounds like something totally unrelated?
Homonymic?
Why did you have to bring gay people into this, you insensitive clod?!?
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
You should read the poll (I'm guessing whoever wrote the associated article didnt). Good luck finding it though. The only reference to it is a screen shot of the question. I'm interested to know how many Democrats thought the same thing. It must have been a lot because they made the poll disappear.
http://xkcd.com/202/
When "i don't agree with obamacare" is equal to being a racist, your comment is a joke. Seriously, not agreeing with the president is considered racist now. Its a WTF moment all the way around.
Actually it's not, but you want to make this connection to silence those who would call out the inaccuracies or fallacies of your view.
What you are doing is "poisoning the well" by trying to attack the legitimacy of those who would argue against your views before they do so.
A lot of people poison the well when they want to say something they know is obviously wrong. Odd that you would mention racism as poisoning the well is one of their favourite tactics to avoid being called out on obvious racism I.E. "It's not racist to say bad things about black people if its true. Disagreeing with this is just Political Correctness gone mad... But all them niggers are layabouts, drunks and criminals". In this example the racist attempts to vilify the critics before using an obviously racist statement to prevent being called out on obvious racism.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
1) People who Have So Much Money That Nothing Can Hurt Them like Huffington should consider what happens to people in the REAL world if they voice opinions unpopular with their co-workers, employers, neighbors or government. Where my wife works it's THIS far from a liberal/conservative political food fight on some days and if her REAL opinions ever became known, she'd be out of her job at the machinations of her co-workers, without a doubt.
So I guess Rich Bitch Huffy is telling my wife that she's not welcome to post at Huffpo. Atta' way to shut people up once and for all on just those topics- controversial ones- in which the polity presumably needs access to the widest opinions possible.
Oh and by the way, my wife NEEDS her job and isn't going to find another one like it somewhere else. Enough said.
Not to mention that if people ever were known for publicly supporting activities which were illegal - like smoking dope or same sex marriage - then they wouldn't come out in support of such things since even supporting them, back int he day, was basically a job/neighbor/family death sentence. So on THOSE topics there would be even less discussion, even fewer people relating real experiences. What we would have left to read would be the jingoistic tropes of the day and the crassest forms of majoritarianism
This "if you believe in what you're saying, then you'll sign your name to it" bullshit are just manipulative ploys used by elites to try to shame people whose speech they don't like,
I think that we can now also add to that traditional motivation another one- the motivation to increase your profit from your website. By being able to assure buyers of your sites' REAL product, the sentiment analysis, consumer analytics and personality dossiers you sell- that you know the real, actual names attached to those products, you can command a higher price than aggregated, mass statistics and genericized profiles can command.
Let's face it. Employers really want to know who's going to work 80 hours a wek for peanuts, never complain, keep their mouths shut about law breaking they see and never ask for a raise. They want to know who the bitches are and who the OTHER ones are who think they deserve, you know, a life, a raise, some vacation, some decent treatment If Huffpo can deliver those first names to them and also deliver to them the names of the people who must be kept unemployed, then Huffpo has finally found a business model other than selling itself to yet richer owners and cashing out the current ones.
As far as moderation goes, Slashdot has it just right. Give random, people limited ability to mod posts. Let people post AC if they see fit. Don't let people disappear other people's thoughts under any circumstances. Don't reward higher usage with special and increasing god powers - this is the mistake StackExchange made- because it attracts losers with power issues like flies to shit and basically you've got a Survivor-style dynamic on your hands where alliances form and favors are passed around and it all gets very personal and petty very fast.
One thing that always good is if you can elect to never see posts form someone again. Trolls go on talking , but only to themselves. Salon had this and it was great. The user experience improved because you didn't have to deal with the trolls who spent all their time there picking fights and being obnoxious. You never saw their posts. Nice. Then Salon went "must log in , no anonymous speech " and I left and never wen back.
Anonymous speech is completely foundational to truth telling , to speaking truth to power, to organizing and to broad societal change. Elites have always called it the mark of cowardice. If you ever find yourself holding that opinion, pat yourself on the back because while you may be a piece of shit, you've nevertheless made it in America.
I've been posting here under this name for the last 10,000 years and I see no reason to stop now.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Don't use sarcasm or irony on the internet.
Irony is a very dangerous thing if it isn't backed up by facial expression. There is a reason why professional journalists don't use it outside of polemic opinion pieces. If you want to avoid any misunderstanding you will have to say what you mean.
The same obviously goes for ironic sarcasm.
Humor itsself lives by its context. You will need to make sure everybody has the same context or you will also cause misunderstandings. You'll also have to keep in mind that context might be a cultural one. On the internet you will meet a lot of people in all walks of life, of any creed, of any nationality an presumably a couple of dogs. Don't expect to be funny to everybody no matter how hilarious you are. One person's humor is another person's troll.
20 minutes into the future
This "if you believe in what you're saying, then you'll sign your name to it" bullshit are just manipulative ploys used by elites to try to shame people whose speech they don't like,
There's also the question how common your name is. There are two people with my real name in Germany, eleven with my last name in all of Britain and none with the same first name. My wife's name is most likely unique in the world. Much easier for Joe Smith to post under his real name than me.
Riiiight, I'm sure everyone's going to stop being sarcastic on the internet.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
..means that those who will be punished for what they say will be quiet. (Or punished.)
If you think this is a good thing you have a very limited knowledge of history.
The majority is almost always hostile to the truth.
Mundus Vult Decipi